The Priority Is Pressurization

Advances in technology as well as health and safety issues in many industries have mandated more stringent environmental control at many production and research workspaces. The reasons for this include both worker safety (protection from harmful chemicals, exhaust, etc.) as well as tighter environmental control for many processes, production applications, research facilities, and hospital/biomedical applications. One key concern with regard to environmental control is room or workspace pressurization. Without pressurization it is virtually impossible to maintain precise and repeatable control of other critical environmental parameters in an enclosed area.

Next, determine what specific areas are to be controlled. Would this area encompass a large, open space? Or instead a segmented (or isolated) part of a larger area? For example, if the production process creates noxious gases which are not particularly dangerous, you need to determine whether those gases can be contained by specialized exhaust equipment. In many cases, this would be a more sensible and cost-effective solution than installing equipment to maintain negative pressure in a large area just to prevent fumes from entering other parts of the building. This is obviously a critical issue and should be evaluated carefully with regard to pressurization of a large workspace vs. localized exhaust or containment.